Federal Government & Politics II

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Spousal sponsorship in Canada is not automatic. You can't just instantly get a visa by marrying a Canadian. You have to go through an interview and assessment process to determine if the relationship is genuine & not done solely for immigration purposes to get a spousal visa. It's pretty rigorous. I have family members who married foreigners and went through that process.

Yes, you have to go through the process, but the result is almost always successful, unless there are doubts about the legitimacy of the marriage.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Build.It

This is what the interventionists/protectionists want to prevent us from being able to buy:

China's BYD New Hybrid Cars: Ultra-Long 2000 km Range for Under $14,000

https://youtu.be/GPmQo5c505I?si=_N25f4l6lu94SxBS

14,000 is the US conversation of the Chinese domestic price. Even without tariffs it wouldn’t sell for anywhere near that in Canada. The Dolphin sells for that price in China and over 30k in the UK (50k in C$).

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by acottawa

14,000 is the US conversation of the Chinese domestic price. Even without tariffs it wouldn’t sell for anywhere near that in Canada. The Dolphin sells for that price in China and over 30k in the UK (50k in C$).

The European and Chinese versions of the Dolphin aren't exactly the same.

The Chinese version is sold in Mexico, where it costs around $31,000 US including the 16% Mexican purchase tax. There's also a smaller 5 door Seagull, sold there as the Dolphin Mini, which starts at 358,000 Mexican pesos (about $26,000 US including tax). That's available in China for about 74,000 Chinese yuan ($14,000 US).

There are no import duties on Chinese vehicles entering Mexico, and here they're currently 6%, but provincial tax and GST would be less than 16%, so the equivalent price if BYD imported the Seagull Mini into Canada could be around $36,000 CA after taxes, (without any rebates).

BYD are still expected to fix on a location to establish a car plant in Mexico before the end of the year.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The European and Chinese versions of the Dolphin aren't exactly the same.

The Chinese version is sold in Mexico, where it costs around $31,000 US including the 16% Mexican purchase tax. There's also a smaller 5 door Seagull, sold there as the Dolphin Mini, which starts at 358,000 Mexican pesos (about $26,000 US including tax). That's available in China for about 74,000 Chinese yuan ($14,000 US).

There are no import duties on Chinese vehicles entering Mexico, and here they're currently 6%, but provincial tax and GST would be less than 16%, so the equivalent price if BYD imported the Seagull Mini into Canada could be around $36,000 CA after taxes, (without any rebates).

BYD are still expected to fix on a location to establish a car plant in Mexico before the end of the year.

I assume the different specs for Europe are due to either safety requirements or consumer tastes. In either case I would assume Canada would get the Europe version rather than the China version.

[Marty_Mcfly]

I think I'm going to flip flop on my Toronto-St. Paul's prediction from last week. Last week I said I think it'd be a CPC +2 win, but I'm going to back track and predict a LPC +3 win tonight.

That's a rough result for the Liberals, but I think the mountain may be too steep to climb for the CPC in this riding.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

I think I'm going to flip flop on my Toronto-St. Paul's prediction from last week. Last week I said I think it'd be a CPC +2 win, but I'm going to back track and predict a LPC +3 win tonight.

That's a rough result for the Liberals, but I think the mountain may be too steep to climb for the CPC in this riding.

Liberals +4 would be 3 points worse than 2011 wheras in general the Liberals are actually polling better than 2011 (at expense of NDP). On the other hand byelections are about sending a message and the Jewish vote is a big question. I'd guess you have a lot of liberal Jews in the riding and already in 2011 the Isreal supporters were with Harper but enthusiam gap would seem to favor them as well. But with Liberals polling better than 2011 it's maybe a 10 point general election gap to make up.

All that said I get the feeling more and more Trudeau will ignore the result anyway. Polievre seems to be staying away too which could suggest they know they are going to lose. Some conspiracy theory folks are saying the Cons are throwing the match as they don't want Trudeau to resign. That seems a bit clever and a Con win might ignite a fraternal war weakening them more as likely as it brings in a popular new leader who turns around Liberal fortunes,

[shreddog]

FWIW, 338 has the following "odds of winning" as of yesterday:

LPC win - 75%
CPC win - 25%

[acottawa]

I think a Tory win is unlikely. The riding hasn’t gone Tory since 1988, even a 20 point shift wouldn’t get the Tories over the top (unless almost all of it went Conservative).

[shreddog]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think a Tory win is unlikely. The riding hasn’t gone Tory since 1988, even a 20 point shift wouldn’t get the Tories over the top.

338 had their numbers at 39/35, so yeah even with the protest and stay at home aspects of a byelection, I (still) think a small win by the LPC is the most likely outcome.

[hipster duck]

I biked through a lot of St. Paul's yesterday. I know some guy on a forum's anecdotal observations of lawn signs in the parts of the riding he traveled through is a very poor predictor of actual outcomes, but I thought it was interesting that the lawn signs were either Conservative or NDP (mostly on the middle class periphery). There were very few Liberal lawn signs in a riding that typically votes majority (not plurality) Liberal.

My guess is that the Liberals will eke a victory here by the slimmest of margins:

LPC: 37% (-13% from 2021)
CPC: 35% (+9%)
NDP: 22% (+6%)
Others: 6% (+1 %)

[Dartguard]

Originally Posted by shreddog

338 had their numbers at 39/35, so yeah even with the protest and stay at home aspects of a byelection, I (still) think a small win by the LPC is the most likely outcome.

I actually hope the Liberals keep the seat as that will convince Mr Trudeau to stay on. False hope and all that. Toronto and its voters are forever convinced that the Liberal way is the only way. Perhaps the 48 Liberals left after the General election can help each other out.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Proud to be one of those protectionists in this case. When China allows competition on a fair playing field I'll change my mind.

That said, it is unfortunate that we haven't forced our industry to compete because way too many people got wrapped up in EVs being part of the culture wars and not seeing the industrial threat.

I don't think that intentionally making EVs more expensive for the domestic market is a smart move, considering the goal is to get people into EVs as soon as possible.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Build.It

I don't think that intentionally making EVs more expensive for the domestic market is a smart move, considering the goal is to get people into EVs as soon as possible.

That is not the goal. The goal is firstly to be a key part of the EV manufacturing supply chain and only secondly to have more people driving EVs in Canada. We can see in how we are spending money how the two priorities rank. $45 billion over next ten years for Battery plant subsidies alone and a fraction of that for consumer subsidies. If out carbon output was really at a crisis level we could give $25000 subsidies, open our market to China (maybe in return for market access on products we are more competitive on) and have everyone driving EVs by 2030.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I biked through a lot of St. Paul's yesterday. I know some guy on a forum's anecdotal observations of lawn signs in the parts of the riding he traveled through is a very poor predictor of actual outcomes, but I thought it was interesting that the lawn signs were either Conservative or NDP (mostly on the middle class periphery). There were very few Liberal lawn signs in a riding that typically votes majority (not plurality) Liberal.

My guess is that the Liberals will eke a victory here by the slimmest of margins:

LPC: 37% (-13% from 2021)
CPC: 35% (+9%)
NDP: 22% (+6%)
Others: 6% (+1 %)

This seems like a pretty safe general election estimate for the riding. The byelection could throw things off. Interesting there were lots of NDP signs. Wonder if the NDP strategic voters and those on the left side of Liberal party unhappy with Trudeau increase their vote share because especially it's a byelection. In the general the fear of Polievre is likely to see a return of strategic voting. A better NDP leader could probably skew that towards the NDP but they seem to have no interest in winning anymore.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

That is not the goal. The goal is firstly to be a key part of the EV manufacturing supply chain and only secondly to have more people driving EVs in Canada. We can see in how we are spending money how the two priorities rank. $45 billion over next ten years for Battery plant subsidies alone and a fraction of that for consumer subsidies. If out carbon output was really at a crisis level we could give $25000 subsidies, open our market to China (maybe in return for market access on products we are more competitive on) and have everyone driving EVs by 2030.

So basically we are relying on US protectionist policies and our free trade agreement to be their main EV supplier.

Also not very smart. Whenever the US decides to open the floodgates (whether 5, 10 or 30 years from now) we are toast.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Build.It

So basically we are relying on US protectionist policies and our free trade agreement to be their main EV supplier.

Also not very smart. Whenever the US decides to open the floodgates (whether 5, 10 or 30 years from now) we are toast.

Well what's the alternative? Given we are in the Federal Politics thread what federal policy would be better?

I think the idea the US is going to open the floodgates seems unlikely. Actually in 5 years we might be laughing that we ever thought EVs were going to take over in the medium term. A Trump win turns back the US clock 20 years. The EU is looking like opposition is growing to the green agenda. We will have a government that wants to pay lip service only to climate change. We might assume they will keep prioritizing our industrial capacity but in theory Polievre is a believer in hands off markets (though so was Harper). If he cuts spending enough to be able to afford tax cuts he might count on that unleashing economic growth that lifts all boats and let the inefficient parts sink. As TrueNorth points out frequently if the future is EVs (which is still the smart bet) and we don't play we may lose our whole auto industry.

[TorontoDrew]

I love how short-term the memory of voters are in this country. Thinking that the fool PP is going to somehow improve their lives. I suppose if you are big oil or big business that's true. I also love how most Canadians claim to care about the environment but don't want to feel any sort of slight financial price to cut back on pollution or to clean up the ecosystems of this country.

Trudeau should let another Liberal MP take over but that won't happen and we will be stuck with a clown that adores MAGA-style politics. Again the CONS would never win if the NDP and Liberals didn't split votes. Canada has way more left-leaning voters than those on the right.

Meet our new PM.
Default_Transform_this_man_into_a_wooden_ventriloquist_dummy_w_1 by Andrew Moore, on Flickr

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

I love how short-term the memory of voters are in this country. Thinking that the fool PP is going to somehow improve their lives. I suppose if you are big oil or big business that's true. I also love how most Canadians claim to care about the environment but don't want to feel any sort of slight financial price to cut back on pollution or to clean up the ecosystems of this country.

Trudeau should let another Liberal MP take over but that won't happen and we will be stuck with a clown that adores MAGA-style politics. Again the CONS would never win if the NDP and Liberals didn't split votes. Canada has way more left-leaning voters than those on the right.

What memory should guide them in worrying about Polievre? For sure those of us who are more progressive socially will remember the ick of a bunch of religous or otherwise uptight white men leading on everything but frankly Trudeau is so unhinged on those issues a lot of people prefer that to what we have now. Meanwhile economic stewardship matters to all of us not just big corporations. Economic growth is at the end of the day the only thing that can improve our well being on a sustainable basis. You can tax the rich a bit and hand out checks but we've kind of reached the limit on that and cutting open the golden goose doesn't always (or often) work.

What Liberal leader do you imagine brings the 10% of the electorate who voted Liberal in 2021 and are now voting Conservative? Let alone the 5% that switched from 2015 to 2019 already making it close.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Well what's the alternative? Given we are in the Federal Politics thread what federal policy would be better?

Mine our nickel, lithium etc here, have the mining companies ship it to companies overseas that know how to make batteries cheaply, then ship those batteries to vehicle assembly plants. Canadians get cheap EVs. Government doesn't need to be involved, or spend any money, aside from building roads to the mines.

That's better than forcing everyone to have to buy an overpriced EV in the name of protecting a few thousand jobs (many of which don't even exist yet), and spending billions of tax dollars each year to subsidize the whole thing.

I'm not an expert, but I don't see why existing autoplants can't just be upgraded to include installing batteries into cars. I don't see why the batteries need to be made here. It makes far more sense for the batteries to be made in countries that are already good at consumer electronics (China, Taiwan, etc) and then sent here for vehicle assembly.

None of this needs to be subsidized.

EDIT:

It gets even better. After looking it up - all of Canada's auto assembly workers combined are only 125,000 people. That sounds like a lot, but is actually a drop in the bucket (we bring in that many newcomers each month). Canada's auto assembly industry is responsible for $3.7B or 0.18% of our total GDP.
https://www.unifor.org/resources/our...sector-profile

This is hardly something that's worth throwing $45B at to "save".

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Trudeau should let another Liberal MP take over but that won't happen and we will be stuck with a clown that adores MAGA-style politics. Again the CONS would never win if the NDP and Liberals didn't split votes. Canada has way more left-leaning voters than those on the right.

That's not actually true.